Redneck Grandpa: Was that an Ant in your Ear?

I hail from small town British Columbia where the main industry is forestry, beer is king and the culture varies from redneck conservative to hippy liberal. My father is a throwback who marches to the beat of his own drummer and a devoted grandpa. But things get really interesting when Grandpa goes into redneck mode.

One evening, my husband and I left the dude with Redneck Grandpa and Grandma for a date night with a nice dinner out. Just as we finished our meal, I received an unexpected phone call saying everything was okay but the dude has something stuck in his ear and we are on our way to the hospital.Meet you there…

Say what?

Here’s the story. Redneck grandpa and my son were out in the yard. Grandpa was barbecuing the dinner and mischief boy decided to climb a tree. The way Redneck Grandpa tells it, dude was having a great old time in the tree until it was time to come in for supper. Then he got really quiet. Dude wouldn’t eat his supper.

Grandma and Grandpa asked him what was wrong.

The dude cried “there is something in my ear,” and burst into tears.

“Oh no! Well what could be in your ear for heaven’s sake?” they asked.

Well he didn’t know, and so Redneck Grandpa peered at the offending ear trying to divine the source of problem. Maybe it was some dirt? A bit of branch? Redneck Grandpa thought he saw something black in there with the help of a flashlight. They rinsed out the ear to see if that would help but there were more tears. Something was in there, but what?

We met up at the hospital and sat in the waiting room for a while, reliving the story of the mysterious object in the ear.

“Does it hurt?” we asked.

“No, but it feels like something is moving around in there sometimes,” said the dude.

Really!?!?

We waited as one does in a hospital waiting room to see the doctor about the “foreign object” in our son’s ear. And waited. And waited.

All of a sudden I noticed an ant crawling on my son’s neck just below the troublesome ear. I flicked the ant away and then paused as realization set in.

“Was that an ant in your ear?” I wondered.

Well he didn’t know for sure and it still felt funny, so we waited some more and saw the doc in the emergency room – but there was nothing to see in that ear but a little ear wax.